1. Supreme Court removed a state minister over Disqualification petition for First Time

• For the first time in its history, the Supreme Court removed the Manipur Minister Thounaojam Shyamkumar Singh from the state cabine for the first time in its history, the Supreme Court removed the Manipur Minister Thounaojam Shyamkumar Singh from the state cabinet. The apex court has also been restrained him from entering the Legislative assembly.
• Mr Shyamkumar won the 2017 assembly elections on Congress Ticket and switched over to BJP to become the minister of Town Planning, forest and Environment. Disqualification petitions were filed against him to the speaker by the other MLAs.
• The Disqualification petitions against the minister was pending before the speaker of the Manipur Assembly since 2017. However, no action has still been taken. When the issue was appealed to SC, the apex court has invoked Article 142 and has removed the minister from the cabinet.

Foot Notes:
About Manipur
Capital: Imphal
Governor: Najma Heptulla
Chief minister: N. Biren Singh
About Article 142
The Supreme Court under the article 142 can pass an order doing “complete justice” to matter pending before it.
 

2. National Company Law Appellate Tribunal’s bench constituted in Chennai

• National Company Law Appellate Tribunal’s bench has been established in Chennai. It has been established in Chennai because its requirement was felt in the Southern part of the country. However, the Delhi bench will work as the principal bench.
• As per the notification issued in this context, the Chennai bench of NCLAT will hear petitions filed against the orders of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLAT) of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry.

3. Government to draft National e-Commerce policy  and New Industrial Policy

• The Government is considering to form a National e-Commerce policy and the new Industrial Policy. The draft national e-commerce policy seeks to facilitate the regulatory environment for the growth of the e-commerce sector.
• The e-commerce policy is aimed at empowering the local entrepreneurs and encourage make in India to safeguard consumer interest to facilitate job creation.
• The newly proposed industrial policy aims to boost the growth of the manufacturing sector in India.

4. Google appointed Karan Bajwa as MD of Google Cloud in India

• Google appointed Karan Bajwa as Managing Director (MD) of Google Cloud in India. He will advise Google Cloud's work with the local developer ecosystem and India-based Global System Integrators (GSIs). Google Cloud's field sales, partner, and customer engineering organizations in India will report to Bajwa. He will be responsible for driving all revenue and go-to-market operations for Google Cloud's extensive solution portfolio that includes Google Cloud Platform and G Suite in the country.
• Karan Bajwa is a senior leader with over three decades of leadership experience. He recently served as MD for  India and South Asia for IBM.
• Before that, he worked as an MD in Microsoft for nine years. He led the company's operations in India. He worked with Cisco Systems in India and Singapore.

Foot Notes:
About Google
CEO: Sundar Pichai
Founded: 4 September 1998, Menlo Park, California, United States
Parent organization: Alphabet Inc.
Headquarters: Mountain View, California, United States

5. NHA ties up with Private hospitals to fight against Coronavirus

• The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) signed an agreement with the National Health Authority (NHA).
• The aim is to identify capacities to admit patients from among 19,840 empanelled hospitals under the scheme.
• Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan chaired a high-level review meeting with chiefs of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, RML, and Safdarjung Hospital to examine infrastructure preparedness.

Foot Notes:
Health Minister: Harsh Vardhan
About  National Health Authority
CEO: Dr. Indu Bhushan

6. Rajya Sabha moved a Resolution  to remove the word “Socialism” in the Constitution

• The ruling party (BJP) member of Rajya Sabha Shri Rakesh Sinha has issued a notice to the Chairman to permit to move a resolution. The resolution aims to drop the word “Socialist” in the Constitution.
• The resolution claims that the world socialism is redundant in the current scenario. It has to be dropped to create space for economic thinking. The Preamble of Constitution declares India to be sovereign, secular, socialist and democratic republic. The resolution claims that word was included without enough debate in the Parliament as it was introduced during emergency.
• The words “Socialist” and “Secular” were included in the 42nd amendment of the Constitution. The amendment was passed during the emergency period. The amendment attempted to reduce the powers of Supreme Court. It laid down fundamental duties of Indian Citizens. The amendment brought in several changes for it was addressed as “Mini-constitution”.

Foot Notes:
About Rajya Sabha
Deputy Leader of the House: Piyush Goyal
Deputy Chairman: Harivansh Narayan Singh
Chairperson: Venkaiah Naidu
Seats: 245 (233 Elected + 12 Nominated)
Leader of the Opposition: Ghulam Nabi Azad

7. Philippines shut Financial Market due to COVID 19 outbreak

• Philippines become the first country to close its financial markets due to the COVID 19 (Coronavirus) outbreak. It resumed its trading on March 19, 2020.  This measure was taken to ensure the safety of their employees and the people they interact with.
• Now the speculations are if other countries may take similar measures then there is a fear of a global recession.
• Shutting markets is an extremely rare case during times of crisis. Earlier cases were, A week long closing of America’s stock after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, while Hong Kong shuts trading due to Black Monday crash in 1987. Greece halted its stock market for about five weeks in 2015.

Foot Notes:
About Philippines
Capital: Manila
Currency: Philippine peso
President: Rodrigo Duterte

8. World Cities Summit 2020 to be held in Singapore from July 5 to 9,2020

• The 7th World Cities Summit (WCS) is to be held from July 5 to 9, 2020 at Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Marina Bay Sands, in Singapore. It is organized by Singapore’s Centre for Liveable Cities and the Urban Redevelopment Authority.  The theme for WCS 2020 is ”Livable and Sustainable Cities: Adapting to a Disrupted World”.
• The WCS 2020 is held in conjunction with the Singapore International Water Week (SIWW) and the CleanEnviro Summit Singapore (CESG).
• Singapore Government invited Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to the WCS-2020.
• World Cities Summit:
• The WCS was inaugurated in the year 2008 and conducted once in 2 years.This platform brings Government leaders, Industrial experts to forge new partnerships and address liveable and sustainable city challenges, sharing integrated urban solutions and there will be discussions about how cities can cope with climate change, social shifts and technological disruptions with confidence.

Foot Notes:
About Singapore
President: Halimah Yacob
Capital: Pulau Ujong
Currency: Singapore dollar
 

9. RBI opens 6 month dollar-swap window along with infusion of Rs 1,00,000 crore through LTRO

• There is global instability in financial markets due to the spread of COVID 19 (Coronavirus), which may lead or leading to a slowdown in growth. Every economy is making efforts to stabilize the financial market condition, among them, the Central Bank of India i.e. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has opened a six-month dollar sell-buy swap window, and will also inject Rs 1,00,000 crore additional Long Term Repo Operations (LTROs) at the policy repo rate.
• These measures taken by RBI are to boost liquidity in the foreign exchange market of India and will serve the requirement of U.S. dollars in the market.
• RBI is trying to restore dollars in the market, as there has been a huge outflow of dollar from banks due to the selling of shares by foreign institutional investors (FIIs). Since February 24, 2020, $4.7 billion worth of such share are sold. In order to tackle this situation, RBI will undertake second 6-month dollar/rupee sell/buy swap auction on 23 March, 2020.
• Under this, RBI will provide $2 billion to the banks that need it through a swap. Simply, RBI will give dollars and the buyer bank will give rupees and the transaction will be reversed on September 25, 2020. This is the second time RBI has come out with the dollar-swap window in this month. Earlier, on March 16, 2020, RBI conducted U.S. dollar-rupee sell-buy swaps worth $2 billion

Foot Notes:
About RBI
Headquarters: Mumbai
Founder: British Raj
Founded: 1 April 1935, Kolkata
Governor: Shaktikanta Das

10. Standard & Poor’s slashes India’s growth for 2020 to 5.2% from 5.7% amid virus fears

• Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Global Ratings, the world’s leading provider of independent credit ratings, has slashed India’s global economic growth forecast to 5.2 % in 2020 from 5.7 % predicted earlier, saying the global economy is entering a recession due to the spread of infection of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
• As a result, the growth rate in Asia Pacific may be reduced by half to around 3%. It lowered China’s growth rate to 2.9%, Japan’s growth rate to -1.2 % (from 4.8 %, and -0.4% predicted earlier) respectively.
• To boost economic activity, the US Fed has raised interest rates to near zero, while the Bank of Japan has increased asset purchases.
• Earlier the  Moody’s Investors Service has lowered India’s growth projection to 5.3% for 2020 from 5.4% as a result of Coronavirus.

Foot Notes:
About S&P Global Ratings
Headquarters: New York, United States
CEO: Douglas L. Peterson
Founder: Henry Varnum Poor
Founded: 1860

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Current Affairs 18 March 2020

Current Affairs 17 March 2020

Current Affairs 16 March 2020